The board room at the Canberra Theatre Centre contains a long, wide table made to seat at least ten people. Usually, it would dominate the room. But today, sitting in one corner, is Tex Perkins – tall, dauntingly solid, and with a dark tanned skin, his presence fills the room. Once we’ve begun speaking, it becomes increasingly evident that, unlike those who seem to have been ravaged and exhausted by years of living the rock musician lifestyle and all that goes along with it, Perkins has become hardened and grown; someone whose character has become a juxtaposition of their decadent, wild side – a side forged and lived mostly in their youth, but still burning brightly – and alongside it, their current life as a family man, pragmatist, and, in Perkins’ case, theatre performer.
So it’s no surprise that his depiction of Johnny Cash in the musical theatre production THE MAN IN BLACK, soon to make its way to Canberra, has enthralled audiences the country over, gaining continuously extended runs in many cities. The show sees ‘Tex Perkins and the Tennessee Four,’ along with Rachael Tidd (as the infamous June Carter), portray the life of the legendary ‘man in black’ via a mixture of theatre and legendary Cash songs (usually about 25 of them, Perkins says).
Perkins gained the role after what he describes as “one of those beautiful, fortuitous moments”: less than 24 hours after asking his manager to find him a project that would get him to Melbourne for a couple of months, he was offered the role of Cash. Fortuitous it certainly was for Perkins, but even more so for the producers. They, like most, knew Perkins as the domineering frontman of acts like the Beasts of Bourbon and the Cruel Sea, but were unaware of how great a role Cash played in Perkins’ musical career. “They weren’t aware that my first band, [Tex Deadly and] the Dum Dums – at one stage, half our set was Johnny Cash. I learned my craft doing Johnny Cash, so it’s like home turf to me.” At this point, it was the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, Perkins was a teenager living in Brisbane and, like most teenagers, was attracted to the more basic elements of Cash’s music. “It was appealing because it had funny, bad-arse lyrics about killing people, drinking whiskey and taking drugs,” Perkins says. “But it was also very simple music – it seemed achievable to us. It wasn’t complicated and that was very attractive to a 17 year old punk kid.”
28 years later, the songs still resonate with Perkins, but on a different level. Perkins admits that nowadays, the one element of Cash’s life and music that he relates to the most is the conflict between the life of a travelling rock musician and the life of a family man. “Which was great, because that’s the basis of the show,” says Perkins. “It’s about the supposed contradiction, or duality of the fact that Cash was a God fearing, flag waving family man, versus the fact that he was a drug addicted, outlaw country singer that liked to sing about shooting cocaine and shooting his wife.” But like Cash, Perkins is still drawn to the dark humour within otherwise morbid subject matters. “Even though there are some really beautiful, serious moments, there’s a lot of humour in the show,” he says. “And that’s in keeping with the spirit of Cash’s songs. Even the songs that aren’t particularly comedic, you can tell there’s a real wit in the writing.”
Although he can now relate to Cash more than ever and play his songs better than ever, Perkins admits that the show certainly hasn’t been without its challenges. “Well, there are some quite specific disciplines you have to learn about doing a theatre show. Even though this show’s fairly simple, there are still rules to the theatre, and I had to learn those.” So as Perkins came to terms with singing someone’s else’s songs repetitively for months on end (he laughingly concedes that an unfortunate by-product of playing Cash is that he no longer listens to him), he slowly mastered the ability to engage crowds in a manner quite different to that which he was used to.
“I’d always wondered how actors can do repeated takes and bring something fresh and real each time,” he says. “I’ve learned the many subtleties of how you can say a scripted line; how saying something quickly or slowly, with pauses or different emphases can create such a dramatic effect, especially when 1000 people are listening to every single thing you’re saying.”
Along with the Tennessee Four, Perkins is joined by Rachael Tidd whose recent history is strongly theatre-based, but whose career first began as a saxophonist in a jazz big-band. “Having both the musical and theatrical background means she’s been invaluable to the show on many levels,” says Perkins. “Especially in the early stages, when the script we’d been given was a bit dry and we were spending days rehearsing it and working it into a state where we were happy with it, she was absolutely vital.”
So how does Perkins feel now? Still playing Cash songs, with scripted interludes; his life, like the show, seems to be repeating itself, albeit with greater attention to detail and subtlety. “When we went back to Brisbane to play, I thought ‘here I am again, playing Cash. Surely I’ve progressed past this!’” he says, laughing. “But it’s been a beautiful full circle; a beautiful, but scary full circle.”
The Man in Black runs at the Canberra Theatre from Wednesday June 30 to Saturday July 3. Tickets to all shows are sold out.
